Oil!

Reading the articles from National Geographic and Slate and talking today in class about the scramble for this particular African resource made me think of Oil! by Upton Sinclair and that recent, really boring yet award-winning movie (that I've forgotten the name of) that was based on the book. The plots in these take place in California or Texas (I think the book and the movie differ a lot... surprise.), and obviously do not have the same large-scale effects as the events in Africa. It's interesting, to me, at least, that the discovery of oil can connect different people and different parts of the world, whether through trade or just the common effects on the surroundings, social and ecological.

Something that stood out to me in the article from Slate is the settlement town, Atan, across the street from the Kome drilling base for ExxonMobile. It seems to me that the presence of the impoverished, dirty town of Africans hopeful for a job in their own country directly next to the big, shiny, base of foreigners is an example of what all of Africa has become. A report on oil drilling fields in Chad and Cameroon even mentions Atan, but only to reassure that the population has not increased.

A blog titled "Only in Africa" brings up a lot of good points, and references John Ghazvinian's Untapped. It's worth a look if you have a few minutes.

This map also makes me think of what was mentioned in class a few times, about all roads leading to the coast instead of internal African cities. Instead the oil pipe going north or east to cities who could refine it an use it, guess where it goes? Southwest, to the coast.